The 181st Commencement

WITH RECORD-BREAKING CLASSES graduating all over the country this June, Dartmouth reached a high mark of its own at Commencement exercises in the Bema, June 11, when 613 seniors received their Bachelor degrees from President Dickey. The outdoor amphitheater in College Park was filled to overflowing for the final graduation ceremonies, which brought to a close a weekend that was highly successful not only for the seniors and their guests but also for the Fifty-Year Class of 1900, the Twenty-Five-Year Class of 1925, and the older alumni holding reunions at that time.

A torrential thunderstorm Saturday afternoon created temporary difficulties, especially for the baseball game, but it served mainly to break up the heat wave that had hung over the festivities all day Friday and Saturday morning. Although a touch on the cool side, Sunday morning was counted ideal by those who had sweltered through some of the Commencement programs in the Bema in previous years. Academic pomp and . color were not missing from these final exercises, but along with the traditional ceremony this year there was a light touch here and there, a chance to laugh, a local warmth, that made the 1950 Commencement seem more than most a Dartmouth family occasion.

The record-breaking class of 613 graduates this June was considerably larger than the 454 men who received degrees last year or the 471 who graduated in 1948. The academic procession also included thirty February graduates who returned for the Commencement exercises, six recipients of the Master's degree, and 23 men who were awarded the two-year diploma in medicine. Through the split ranks of these graduates, extending from the entrance to College Park all the way to Baker Library, marched President Dickey, Governor Sherman Adams '20, the Trustees, escorting the ten men who received honorary degrees, the Faculty, and the honored Fifty-Year Class of 1900.

CLASS DAY

The Commencement weekend had its formal beginning with the Class Day program Friday afternoon. From the Senior Fence, where the Class of 1950 formed its line of march in cap and gown, the seniors were led to Dartmouth Hall by their class marshals, Robert V. Waterman of Bettendorf, Iowa; John C. Harned of Hartsdale, N. Y.; and Paul R. Rouillard of Saratoga Springs, N. Y. With Dartmouth Hall and a huge Dartmouth banner providing a backdrop, Class President Glenn L. Fitkin of Toledo, Ohio, spoke on behalf of the record class, welcoming the parents and friends who filled the lawn behind the seated seniors. Other members of the class who spoke during this first part of the Class Day program were Webster T. Gault of New York City, who gave the Class Day Oration; G. Park Taylor of Glencoe, N. Y„ who read the Class Poem; and Dick T. Hollands of Hornell, N. Y., who delivered the Address to the College.

Fitkin called attention to the fact that 1950 was the first postwar class to be made up of men of the same age group, and credited this with being an important influence on the spirit and unity of the class. His final words to the parents and other guests were "Have a good time" and that seemed to be the keynote of the weekend.

In his Class Day Oration, Gault dwelt on the ingredients of Dartmouth's uniqueness, quoting humorously a poem from the 1935 Aegis that catalogued the north country, he-man attributes of the Dartmouth student. But, more seriously, he added: "Even in the severest or funniest attacks against the College we have never doubted the value of Dartmouth. And there is the true uniqueness. For a Dartmouth liberal arts education has not only enlivened our thinking, but also broadened our conception of loyalty. In our relations with the College, with our friends, we are not the hollow men, but the loyal men. Such a quality does not belong alone to the Class of '50 or to any class or any period of Dartmouth history. It belongs to all classes, to all Dartmouth, and it is a unique spirit."

Hollands, in his Address to the College, discussed "this business of choice." After pointing out that every decision has its risk and that life does not permit a choice once made to be revoked, he concluded: "So here we are left then with the choice we made that cannot be called back and we are hard put to evaluate that choice. Yet after all the houseparties, after all the lectures—some fascinating, some dull—after all the lengthening spring twilights with the Softball games on the green, I think we can say that, for most of us, out of all the choices which seemed good to us four years ago, this one has turned out to be good. And that, in the words of one of our football songs, is, I think, enough."

After the Address to the College, the men of 1950 again formed their double line and marched behind the Band to the stump of the Old Pine, where they settled down in a large circle to smoke the traditional white clay pipes. Peter B. Shaffer of New York City, decked in war paint and tribal regalia, arrived upon the scene on horseback. From the stump of the Old Pine he delivered the class prophecy, and was followed there by Alan M. Tarr of Exeter, N. H., who gave the Address to the Old Pine. Tarr, winner of the day's forensic honors, thanks to his training with The Players, told his classmates:

"We may look at this stump, then, and be relieved to think that perhaps what it signifies in essence has rescued us from becoming what it appears outwardly to be. Had we been coddled like babies here, had we been swabbed with the cresote of dogma, had we been ringed with the concrete of pure factual knowledge, had we been backed by a stony tower of set standards—and nothing else—then we would today be no more than a mass of withered stumps, surrounding this—our model.

"But we have been given something else —and that something else lies within what this stump symbolizes, and that is felt, if not wholly understood, by all of us. So I say—we're lucky. We can concentrate on being tree, and leave our stump time to later. We can search the genuine and shun the false because our roots have had a taste of both, and we know what they are. We can accept the collective work of sad rain and joyous sun because we know it takes both to grow, just as it takes too much of either to kill. We can grow to the heights it's in us to grow because we know that growing to heights only stops when your stump time has come We're on the way to a lot more growing than we've done here in the past four years. And growing both takes pains and has pains. It's up to us now to see that those pains are well used."

At the conclusion of Tarr's address, the seniors smashed their pipes on the Old Pine stump, in the traditional symbolism of undying fellowship, and then marched back to the campus where the line broke up and family groups were reassembled. It was a hot afternoon and many headed for the 1950 tent, set up in the northwest corner of Memorial Field. A senior-class tent, matching those for the alumni, was a new and popular addition to the Commencement weekend, and on Friday and Saturday nights, both before and after parents had taken to their dormitory beds, it was a convivial gathering place.

After the Band concert on the campus Saturday evening, everyone moved on to the garden of the President's House, where President and Mrs. Dickey held their reception for the graduating class, parents, faculty, alumni and guests. The Class of 1925, which arrived in Hanover with a miniature arsenal as well as a record-breaking reunion attendance, made its presence felt at the reception by firing a 21-gun salute for the President. Mr. Dickey was given advance warning, but others in the huge throng had difficulty controlling their punch cups when the first report went off. After the reception, the Glee Club presented a concert in Webster Hall and the senior dance in the gym got under way at 10.

Phi Beta Kappa launched the Saturday events with a morning meeting, and at noon the annual outdoor luncheon drew seniors, their fathers, alumni and faculty to the gym. The buffet luncheon was followed by a meeting of the General Alumni Association on the upstairs floor of the gym. Frank B. Wallis '25, president of the Association, presided and welcomed the seniors into the Dartmouth alumni ranks. Other speakers were President Dickey; Prof. Leon Burr Richardson '00, who gave the traditional Fifty-Year Address, reported in full in this issue; Scott C. Olin '50, secretary-chairman of the graduating class; and Sidney C. Hayward '26, Secretary of the College, who gave the annual Association report and announced that 1900 had won the Class of 1894 Cup with 80% of its living members back for reunion, and that 1925 had won the Class of 1930 Cup with 187 men back, the largest number of the weekend.

In his informal remarks at the alumni meeting, President Dickey addressed himself primarily to the seniors. He spoke of the adversary relationship that usually exists between the individual student and the institution insisting upon standards and necessary regulations, and gave it as his opinion that it was not until the student had crossed the threshold into the alumni ranks that he really understood the College or the Dartmouth Spirit. He then talked about the intangible but priceless thing called the Dartmouth Spirit and expressed the belief that five factors were outstanding among the ingredients of that spirit. These President Dickey defined as the Dartmouth man's loyalty to Hanover as a place, the adventurous founding of the College, Dartmouth's unique fight for her independence in the Dartmouth College Case, the rededication under President Tucker to the principles that lie close to the heart of the College, and, most recently, the building of an unparalleled alumni strength during the administration of President Hopkins.

"Gentlemen," he said, "that is a heritage that is handed to each man who has had the privilege of attending this college. I charge you of 1950 to keep it; and you who are back here in the Class of 1900 and the Class of 1925 have kept it gloriously. For that, on behalf of all Dartmouth men, I thank all of you."

While the alumni meeting was in progress, the skies let loose a thundering rainstorm, and it looked as though the Dartmouth-Holy Cross baseball game was washed out; but the storm was not of long duration and the baseball fans had a chance after all to see the Big Green nine come close to winning a 3-2 contest. Saturday night offered another Band concert, the Players' presentation of Light Up theSky, and class reunion banquets. The 1925 class dinner in Thayer Hall, attended by President Dickey, proved to be a very special occasion when the record-breaking sum of $111,000 was turned over to the College as the 1925 Class Memorial Fund.

COMMENCEMENT DAY

Commencement guests from farther south might have considered Sunday morning chilly, but Hanoverians thought it ideal for the final graduation exercises in the Bema. The sun broke through the clouds often enough to provide a little warmth, and rain was out of the question, the local assured one and all —correctly, as it turned out. The Class of 1879 Trumpeters, from the tower of Baker Library, and then the ringing of the Baker chimes summoned the graduation participants to their appointed places—the President, Governor, Trustees and honorary degree recipients to the lawn in front of the Administration Building, where cameras clicked busily before the procession formed; the Faculty to Sanborn English House; the Class of 1900 to the lawn of Baker; and the seniors to Rollins Chapel, where a final check was made to be sure that the graduates and their diplomas were in the same order, an annual worry but worth all the trouble in order that each senior may get his own diploma in the Bema and not a blank sheet of paper.

A little before 11 the graduating class emerged from Rollins, made a circuit of the campus behind the Band, and then split ranks along the walk to the Bema as the colorful procession of dignitaries and faculty passed through. Unquestionably the largest audience in Dartmouth Commencement history filled every seat in the Bema and packed the banks.

The ceremonies in the College Park amphitheater opened with an invocation by the Rev. Roy B. Chamberlin, chapel director, and the traditional singing of Milton's Paraphrase of Psalm 136—"Let us with a gladsome mind praise the Lord for He is kind." Robert D. Kilmarx '50 of Bronxville, N. Y., chairman of the Undergraduate Council during the second semester, delivered the Valedictory to the College on behalf of his classmates, and immediately after the conferring of the Bachelor degrees, President Dickey gave his brief Valedictory to the Seniors. The full texts of both farewells will be found in this issue.

Advanced degrees in course and twoyear diplomas in medicine were conferred, and then the climax of the exercises was reached with the awarding of honorary degrees. Ten men, five of them graduates of the College, were honored this year. The Doctorate of Laws was bestowed upon George Frost Kennan, Counselor of the Department of State; Lester Knox Little '14, Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service; Harold Raymond Medina, Judge of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York; Harold Hale Murchie '09, Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court; and Samuel Sommerville Stratton '20, President of Middlebury College. Upon Edward Augustus Weeks Jr., editor of TheAtlantic Monthly, President Dickey conferred the honorary Doctorate of Letters; and upon. Wallace Kirkman Harrison, architect and Director of Planning for the United Nations Headquarters, and Harold Wallace Ross, editor of The NewYorker, the honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters. Two Dartmouth graduates, Parker McLauthlin Merrow '25, north country publisher, and Adna David Storrs '99, proprietor of the Dartmouth Bookstore, were awarded the degree of Master of Arts. The citations for all these honorary degrees are printed in full in this issue.

Mr. Kennan, the principal speaker at the Commencement exercises, delivered his Baccalaureate Address immediately after the honorary degrees had been conferred. The text of his discussion of the past 25 years of American life is also printed in full in this issue.

After the singing of Men of Dartmouth and the final benediction, the audience remained in the Bema while the Class of 1950 filed out. With their mortar board tassels now swinging on the left side, the men of '50 marched out as graduates of the College—a proud, unified and spirited class, welcomed warmly by all Dartmouth men into the alumni fellowship.

CLASS DAY ACTIVITIES which opened Dartmouth's 181 st Commencement program, June 9, included a campus procession of the 613 seniors in the College's largest graduating class, speeches from the Dartmouth Hall steps, and the traditional pipe-breaking ceremony at the stump of the Old Pine.

DP STUDENTS GET DEGREES: Among the members of Dartmouth's largest graduating class were (I to r) Kirill Abramovich, Volodymyr I. Baranetsky and Pieter von Herrmann. They were among the first DPs who enrolled at Dartmouth in 1948.

DARTMOUTH'S FIRST NROTC COMMISSIONING CEREMONY was held in Baker Library immediately after the main Commencement exercises. Shown addressing the 38 Navy ensigns and one Marine lieutenant (S Captain Willard M. Sweetser, USN, chairman of the Naval Science Department. The unit began in 1946.

MAGAZINE EDITORS awarded honorary degrees by the College were Harold W. Ross of "The New Yorker" (left) and Edward A. Weeks Jr. of "The Atlantic Monthly."